Regardless of how the rest of their journey in the 2025 Big East Tournament shakes out, the No. 6 St. John’s Red Storm will very likely get an at-large berth for this year’s edition of the Big Dance.
Nevertheless, Red Storm head coach Rick Pitino wants his team to be at the best possible form heading into the NCAA Tournament — or least better than the quality of play they showed up with during Thursday night versus the Butler Bulldogs at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
“Basically, I told the guys that five-plus performances is a Michael Jordan performance and we were a four-star tonight, which was good enough to win, which you expect,” the 72-year-old Pitino said during the postgame press conference followign the 78-57 victory over the Bulldogs (h/t New York Post Sports).
“Sometimes a team that plays a game is a little underdeveloped, it hurts them in the third game obviously. We played good enough to win, we did a lot of good things tonight, we did a lot of things we need to get better at, but overall it was a four -tar performance and we’ll take it,” added Pitino, who is calling the shots for the No. 1 seed team in the Big East tourney.
St. John’s Red Storm top Butler Bulldogs, advances to semis of Big East Tournament
RJ Luis Jr. led the Red Storm with 20 points, while Kadary Richmond followed up a recent triple-double performance with a 15-point performance in the Butler game. Aaron Scott also provided St. John’s with 15 points.
As a team, the Red Storm shot 47.2 percent from the floor, while their defense did its work as usual. The Bulldogs were held to only 34.5 percent shooting from the field and got forced into committing 15 turnovers.
Those were hallmarks of St. John’s elite defense in the 2024-25 college basketball season. The Red Storm are second in the nation with an 88.4 adjusted defensive efficiency and second in the Big East with 9.0 percent defensive non-steal turnover rate.
The Red Storm are on a hot streak, as they have won all of their last seven games, dating back to the regular season. That stretch includes wins over the then-No. 19 UConn Huskies and the then-No. 209 Marquette Golden Eagles.
St. John’s is a win away from advancing to the Big Eat Tournament championship, as the Red Storm are set to face off against the No. 5 seed Golden Eagles this Friday.
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